Saturday, February 25, 2017

CSE 2017-18 budget to be $596 million

The 2017-18 Main Estimates, tabled in parliament on February 23rd, show a projected 2017-18 CSE budget of $595,983,723.

As the document shows, the budget projected for 2017-18 is slightly higher than the $583.6 million that was originally projected for the current fiscal year (2016-17) and slightly lower than the $599.8 million 2016-17 "to date" figure, which reflects additions made to CSE's budget authorities during the fiscal year. It is $23.6 million lower than the $619.5 million that was actually spent in 2015-16.

After accounting for inflation, this would suggest that CSE's 2017-18 budget will be roughly 7% smaller than it was in 2015-16.

CSE's actual spending in 2017-18 could well turn out to be greater than its 2015-16 spending, however. The agency has received large in-year budget top-ups every year for the last seven years.

Thus, it may be safer to say that CSE's budget appears to have stabilized for the moment at the roughly $600 million level, but with significant year-to-year fluctuations.

That level is about 4.4 times as high, after adjusting for inflation, as CSE's pre-9/11 budget.

According to the Main Estimates, 72% of the money will go to CSE's SIGINT program, while the IT Security program will account for the remaining 28%.

Update 27 October 2017: Make that eight years. This year's Supplementary Estimates (B) added $33 million to CSE's FY 2017-18 budget authority. More here.